News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-01-06
Decline Of Agriculture.

A. o. Blake, Il correspondent of
the Mirror and Farmer, writing from
Barton, Vt, under the heading above
iwhy will people continue to use this
hackneyed phrase against the evil
dence of all the facts? Agriculture
has made wonderful progress within
the last fifty years. but the demands
upon the farmers income have out
run them ally, says
Having been absent from the old
home for nearly year, and my bust
ness during that time having brought
me in close relations with the farmers
of one of the best farming towns of
this part of the State, l have thought
much on this subject. | am as much
at a loss as l. to state why these
things are thus Certainly 1 have never
come in contact with a more discour-
aged, down-hearted set of men than
those l have met of late. Perhaps the
times have been particularly hard.
Everybody claims to be running behind
the Outgoes even exceeding the incomes,
ami again the question comes up, Why?
Verify, is civilization a mistake ? Will
it not account in part for this decline ?
Compare the money paid out in year
by any farmer who is known as we'll
TODD with that paid out in year by
his grandfather. What the grandfather
looked upon as objectionable eXtrava-
gance is now considered an indispensa.
bic necessity. The grandfather attended
church in homespun the grandson in
broadcloth. The grandfather rode in a
wagon whose body sat squarely on and
was bolted firmly to the aXle-tree; the
grandson rides in top buggy resplen-
dent with varnish and silver plating.
The grandmother may have heard of an
organ, but probably never saw one in
her youthful days. The granddaughter
makes things uncomfortable until one
is set up in the house. The grand
mother still has visions of the time
when interminable rows of potatoes
stretched out before her, and she was
expected as a matter of course to pick
them up. The granddaughter scOrns to
stoop to such dirty work. The grand
mother and grandfather thought them
selves fortunate to be allowed to attend
the district school few months in the
winter, The rising generation are too
good to even attend the higher schools
in their own town, but attend school in
some distant town, travelling many
miles daily by rail to do so. 1 never
travel by rail but [ see these same far
luGlS SOlIS 1I1u uetuSHCC di dyo hO" II
at sight, - the sons loud-mouthed and
impertinent, the daughters pert and
looking down upon their less fortunate
sisters with lofty compassion. When
l think of these things l do not wonder
that large majority of farms are bur-
dened with mortgage that will never
be lifted, and the holder thereof signs
as he thinks how long it has been since
he has even received the interest. Your
correspondent says that running in debt
for farm and paying for it off the
farm has become tradition of the past.
This is only too true. speaking of our
native population but when Hans, with
his sturdy brow, assumes the same task,
how then ? / am told by a friend, who
has lived several years in State south
of US. that the old farms that have been
handed down from father to son for
several generations are fast falling into
the hands of those same sturdy foreign
ers, and that they almost invariably pay
for them. Is not the question partly
answered then, - more labor and more
economy ?"